Thursday, January 27, 2011

Justice League of America #53

Has there ever been a worse JLA team? I mean, look at that "inspiring" cover? It's not just me, right?

In any case, James Robinson comes up with a great and unique way to deal with his new villain, the ultra-powered Omega. After fiddling around with the equipment that created him, the JLA succeeds in reversing his powers and setting him loose in the multiverse to rebuild all the worlds he's destroyed. The problem is, this "fix" will only work on other Earth's, not in the core DCU, so if we see Omega again, he'll still be a threat. Robinson gets to use Omega to fix all the multiversal damage that this story caused, AND he has created a JLA villain that can hold up. (Incidentally, my favorite thing about Omega is that he's occasionally overpowered by remorse from some of the world's he's destroyed. This is similar to Peter Milligan's take on Apocalypse in X-Men, and I loved it there too.)

Dick Grayson gets to show off that he can plan too, even though the JLA wasn't quite sure about how he was acting. It is nice seeing everyone revert to form as the story wraps up. The Crime Syndicate's maneuvering is pretty funny when negated by a scheming Batman. Robinson continues to do a great job with Blue Jay. Jay even gets a bit of internal monologue in this issue, and while he's sort of written out of the DCU, these days you never know when he might come back.

I'll miss Mark Bagley's energetic pencils on the JLA. The team looks sleek and powerful, and the Omega design is pretty cool. He's no Darkseid, but he's definitely imposing. I'm not excited about Brett Booth taking over next month; get ready for Donna Troy to have a long neck and a bubble chest.